Norma pulled up a chair to our breakfast table and proceeded to “chat us up,” which is apparently New Zealand slang for “make disparaging remarks about one’s physical fitness in order to dissuade them from hiking.” She kept repeating that our intended hikes were “very difficult” and “physically demanding” in the same kind of way my teachers used to tell my mother that I was “very energetic” and “had a lot of interests.” She then suggested an alternative hike that could accommodate wheelchairs. She also pointed out that we would be stupid if we didn’t go to Mount Maunganui.
Not being stupid, we went north to Mount Maunganui. This proved to be Norma’s one good recommendation. The mountain was on the end of a peninsula and the hike to the top was stunning. Perfect weather. A lot of sheep. New Zealand at its best.
We walked along the beach. We hiked. We drank lattes. We dove out of the way of pimped out minivans driven by New Zealand gangstas.
In a desperate bid to avoid Norma, we walked aimlessly around the town until deciding to see Tropic Thunder. Amy discovered that she is not fond of jokes involving decapitated heads.
Day 4
Breakfast with Norma. This delightful hour and a half was spent listening to her tell us how incredibly relaxing her B&B was. Very calming and peaceful and healing. It made me itchy just listening to her. She also appeared to enjoy listing the advantages of her current lifestyle choice. I began to suspect that she was either trying to sell us a time share or had overdosed on Ativan.
We stopped by the kiwi 360 and bought a load of kiwi crap.
We felt a patriotic need to sustain the American image as ultra consumers so everyone back home is getting a kiwifruit key chain, a kiwifruit magnet, and a Bob the Kiwifruit action figure; all of it nonbiodegradable plastic covered in lead paint. Happy holidays, but please don’t touch, taste, or look at the stuff.
Then it was south to Rotorua (which I was never able to pronounce under pressure – Rotorura … Rortarura … it got ugly). My wife (the psychologist) laughed so hard that several passerbys thought she was choking and attempted to administer first aid. After fighting them off, she said “it’s like you missed a phase of imprinting.” Imprinting is for ducks and chickens! It has nothing to do with phonics. I’d say that my difficulty with pronunciation is a result of my brain making things more difficult than they need to be. Rotorua is clearly missing a syllable, so my brain helpfully adds a sound. Unhelpfully, it is rarely the same sound and it occurs at random.
After Amy compromised by agreeing not to listen to me anymore, we walked along the shores of beautiful Lake Rotorua. We toured Whakarewarewa (I settled on calling it the Whack), which is described as a “living thermal village.” It really was amazing - a group of 26 Maori families live in the middle of geothermal activity and use the superheated water to cook food, wash dishes, and bathe.
I’m up for any tourist activity with a brochure that reads “WARNING – GEOTHERMAL ACTIVITY” in bright red letters and has all sorts of legal caveats about exclusion of liability in tiny print at the bottom. It was a great insight into past and present Maori culture.
Towards the end of the tour, our guide related a great story about the simultaneous arrival of Catholic and Anglican missionaries. The chief met with both groups and then gathered his tribe together in front of their meeting hall. He walked through the middle of the group drawing a line in the earth with his staff. Maori on the left were Anglican and Maori on the right were Catholic. Well, after a bit, it seems that conflict erupted between members of the previously harmonious tribe. Shockingly, the Catholics and Anglicans had some trouble getting along, gleefully condemning each other to hell and thereby hurting each others’ feelings. Who could’ve foreseen that? The chief finally brought them all together and said “Look, chill out. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Anglican or Catholic because we’re all Maori. We all believe the same damn thing.” Something might have been lost in translation there, but I think that was generally the gist.
We left Rotorua and drove south to Lake Taupo for dinner. We ate at Hell Pizza, sure to be a popular chain in the bible belt. Then we drove to National Park Village along a deserted, I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer kind of road.
Day 5
Forecast for the day was “rain easing to showers in the afternoon.” This is not a joke. It’s some strange NZed code for hikers in the know. It didn’t matter. I was still going to hike.
Driven to desperation by the lack of a latte, I slowly drove around the 12 blocks of the National Park Village (NPV) and stumbled upon an unbelievable café at the very outskirts of town, right next to the train tracks. Great coffee, amazing food (a lot like Fuel). Set up reservations for that night.
Dad and I hiked throughout the day, despite the dire warnings of rain.
Amy and Cris watched the US Open and made unnecessary comments about our lack of judgment. A few notable finds on the hikes; National Park employees have limited patience for fans of Lord of the Rings; hiking in snow is much more tiring than you’d expect based on watching it on the Discovery channel; the metal bands we saw on trees were designed to prevent “possum browsing,” which seems like a pretty cool name for a band.